


Science Girlfriends

by Holtzmannsgirlfriend



Category: Ghostbusters (2016)
Genre: F/F, Holtzbert Week
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-08
Updated: 2018-07-12
Packaged: 2019-06-07 06:32:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 4,589
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15213263
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Holtzmannsgirlfriend/pseuds/Holtzmannsgirlfriend
Summary: Happy Holtzbert Week!





	1. Her Side Of The Bed

Though it had only been a week since Holtzmann had left for the conference in Boston, Erin was having serious withdrawals.

Initially, she thought she'd spend the two weeks enjoying the peace and quiet, something she rarely experienced since joining the Ghostbusters. But now that she was faced with it, the silence was deafening. She missed the clang of Holtzmann's tools and the way she would mumble under her breath when something didn't work out exactly as she had wanted it to.

Yes, the silence was nice at first, but now it was giving her a headache. Or maybe it was the lack of sleep causing the headaches.

In Holtzmann's absence, Erin had discovered she wasn't too fond of sleeping alone anymore. In fact, it was next to impossible for her to get any rest whatsoever without the engineer sleeping next to her.

Now Erin was tired and lonely and her head hurt, and she still had another week to go. She felt like a teenager sulking around her apartment, but in her defense, everything really was better when Holtz was around.

She goes to their bedroom and flops down glumly onto their bed, pulling her phone out of her back pocket and dialing Holtzmann before she sighs and closes her eyes, the brightness of the room only adding to her headache. She presses the back of her hand over her eyes and watches the flashing lights on her eyelids until she hears the engineer pick up.

"City morgue," the blonde sings. "Holtzmann speaking."

A smile instantly breaks out across Erin's face.

"Hi, babe," she chuckles. "I miss you."

"I miss you too, angel face," Holtz replies, the crunching of chips punctuating every few words. "Only six more sleeps until we can make out!"

Erin rolls her eyes and scoffs. "Who says I even want to make out with you?"

She did want to, of course. She always wanted to make out with Holtzmann. That was just yet another way that Holtzmann made her feel like a teenager again. Though, of course, she never had anyone to make out with as a teenager...she thought about it a lot though.

Holtzmann laughs and Erin can almost hear a sultry wink through her voice.

"Oh, please. You always want to make out with me, Er bear."

Erin considers arguing for a moment before letting it go. Holtzmann was right, after all.

"Eh...fair enough," she laughs. Erin rolls over on her side and uses her free hand to pull a pillow to her chest. "So how's the conference going?"

Erin could hear the blonde scoff and grunt as she flopped down onto the bed in her hotel room.

"It's just as ridiculous as every other conference Rebecca has dragged me too," she sighs, biting into a chip. "Though I think I can honestly say that there are twice as many men here this time and all of them think they know more about my inventions than I do. So that's...fun."

Erin laughs and rolls her eyes, shaking her head in sympathy.

"Sounds like a blast, I'm sorry I'm missing it," she replies sarcastically.

She felt for the engineer. She attended her fair share of conferences in her career and none of them were enjoyable. If the other attendees weren't trying to tear apart her theories they were ignoring her existence completely, and neither option made for a fun experience.

Holtzmann snorts.

"I miss you a lot, Er bear," Holtzmann replies, her tone shifting to something much softer than usual. "I hate being away from you for so long."

Erin smiles softly, happy the feeling is reciprocated but still upset that they have to suffer without each other for another week.

"Yeah, I'm not too fond of it either," Erin sighs, then decides to be positive like the engineer had attempted to do for her. "But remember, only six more sleeps until we can make out."

Holtzmann laughs.

The two continue talking for an hour. Erin fills Holtzmann in on what's happened around the firehouse and Holtzmann shares her new ideas for weapons. They talk about the traffic in Boston and the weather in New York, the previous evening's sunset, how Holtzmann wants Erin to make her famous vegetarian lasagna for dinner when she gets home. But every few minutes they always come back to how much they miss each other.

Holtz is in the middle of telling Erin a dirty joke she overheard when a knock sounds at the door.

"Shit, that's Rebecca. We're supposed to get dinner and go over some blueprints tonight, I totally forgot. I'll call you back in the morning?"

Erin sighs loudly to herself and frowns, plays with a loose string on one of her pillowcases. "Yeah, okay. Call me tonight instead? Before you go to bed? I don't care how late...I'm sure I'll be awake anyway."

Holtzmann chuckles. "You got it, hot stuff. Tonight it is."

Erin hears Rebecca knock again, the knocks sounding more impatient than the first time.

"I gotta go, Becca always gets grumpy if she doesn't stay on schedule." Holtz laughs. Erin laughs with her.

"I love you, Holtzmann."

"I love you too, babycakes."

Erin ends the call and tosses her phone to the other side of the bed before shoving her face into the pillow with a groan. The pillow smells like lavender, Holtzmann's shampoo, which makes her groan even louder.

The phone call had helped stifle the loneliness, but it didn't eliminate it completely. She had already accepted that nothing would eliminate it until Holtzmann was in her arms again.

She and the engineer had only been dating a few months, but Erin had somehow managed to grow extremely attached to her in that short time.  
Which, Erin thought, was really weird. She was never this attached in any of her previous relationships.

She cared for them, of course. Some of them she even loved. But she didn't spend all of her free time thinking about them. And she wasn't a complete mess when she had to go a few days without them. Her relationship with the engineer was so much different, and better, than anything she had experienced before.

It wasn't that she couldn't function on her own, because she could. It was just that she no longer wanted to.

She still got up in the morning and showered, made her coffee. She still went to work and ate lunch with Abby and Patty and held up her end of the mealtime conversation. She did everything just as easily on her own as she did with Holtzmann. It was just less fun.

Falling in love with Holtzmann not only opened the physicist's eyes to how dull and boring her life was, but it had also made her realize how unhappy she was.

Holtzmann made her feel good.

From the second she woke up next to her in the morning until they fell into bed, panting and burning, every night, things were so good. Even her dreams were pleasant again.

She shoves her face further into the pillow and inhales the scent.

Holtzmann had started using the lavender shampoo a few weeks after they started dating because she knew it was Erin's favorite.  
They would lay in bed together, Holtzmann's hair still damp from the shower, and Erin would wrap her arms around the blonde and pull her closer, lavishing herself in the lavender scent. Holtzmann would just smile and wrap herself around the physicist in return.

Erin smiles at the memory and rolls over onto Holtzmann's side of the bed and hugs the pillows there. She plucks the few stray blonde hairs from the pillowcases and flicks them off the side of the bed.

Some people would think a 40-year-old woman sniffing her girlfriend's pillows was ridiculous--Erin thought it was a little ridiculous herself--but she didn't care.  
  
She allows herself five more minutes before rolling off the bed with a groan. She grabs her phone and walks toward the doorway, planning to spend the rest of her evening watching Golden Girls reruns on the couch until the engineer calls her back.

She stops in the doorway and turns around, grabbing one of Holtzmann's pillows from the bed to join her on the couch. She cradles it to her chest and sighs.

Sunday can't come soon enough.


	2. Emergency Room

It was an intense bust.

The Ghostbusters spent the better part of 3 hours chasing three class IV's and a class V around an abandoned warehouse. They had gone in confident, as always, but halfway through they got nervous.

The class V was truly out for blood, going at the women with everything it had. Towards the end of the bust, after the three class IV's were locked safely in traps, it narrowed it's vision onto Erin and used all of the energy it had left to attack her.

She made her way through most of the attack annoyed but unharmed until the ghost decided it had had enough fun. The ghost swung back around and zigzagged it's way to Erin, picking her up by one arm and throwing her across the warehouse. She slammed into one of the many old, rusted shipping containers that were scattered around and the world went black.

She woke up minutes later to Holtzmann's worried face.

"Stay with me, Er. Everything is okay."

_Now it is_ , she tries to say, but her lips don't move and she's suddenly too tired to try again. She wants so badly to go back to sleep, so she does.

\----------

The second time she wakes up, she's in the back of an ambulance.

An EMT shines a light in her eyes and asks her if she remembers what happened. She nods, her mind flashing back to the last few moments she can recall while he hums in approval and slips a blood pressure cuff around her arm.

She looks around the back of the vehicle and spots Holtzmann, still plagued by worry. She perks up when their eyes meet.

"Hey."

"Hey," Erin smiles back.

"You scared the shit out of us, babe." Holtz laughs but Erin can tell it's out of nervousness rather than amusement.

"I'm sorry."

The engineer exhales loudly and scoots closer. Erin reaches for her hand and smiles when Holtzmann reaches out for hers as well. They stay that way for the rest of the ride.

\----------

Erin had tried to talk Holtzmann into going home with Abby and Patty, but she insisted she had to stay to look after her.

They spent the evening in uncomfortable silence. Erin listening to the tick of the clock and Holtzmann examining her cuticles, peaking up from her hand every now and then to look at Erin.

She's nervous, Erin can tell. She's never quiet unless she's scared.

Erin doesn't blame her. She knows she would be just as upset, maybe even more so, if the roles were reversed.  
She realizes how lucky she is to only come out of this with a concussion. She could have easily died today and that thought scares the hell out of her because there's so much she hasn't done yet, so much she has put off for later.

_Well, Erin, what if later never comes?_

She wanted to skydive. She wanted to see the Northern Lights with her own eyes. Travel the world, figure out how to use the printer at the firehouse, marry Holtzmann.

She wanted that one more than anything. She'd trade all of the other adventures on her bucket list for Holtzmann alone...

The two had fallen in love quickly soon after meeting, stumbling back to Holtzmann's apartment together after celebratory drinks the day after the almost-apocalypse. Erin was already toying with the button on Holtz's pants before they'd even made it to her front door.

They spent the evening drinking each other in, howling each other's names, and by sunrise they were sure it was fate.

That's a strange word for scientists, Erin knows, but there's no other explanation for the way their atoms sing incessantly for each other.

Now that she thought about it, she wasn't sure what they were waiting for.

"Holtz?"

She hums, looking up from her cuticles. "You okay?"

Erin nods her head and reaches for Holtzmann's hand. Holtzmann reaches back, like always.

"I wanna get married."

Holtz tilts her head.

"You mean...to me or just in general?" She says. Erin rolls her eyes and laughs.

"To you. Of course to you. I wouldn't marry anyone but you."

Holtzmann smiles so brightly that it takes up half of her face. She tightens her grip on the physicist's hand.

"Finally."


	3. That Was A Real Thing Right There

_"...and to love is what you have shown me."_

Erin thinks about that line for a long time.

She thinks about it on her way home from the bar and it keeps her awake after she gets into bed.

She plays it over and over again in her head and chills shoot up her spine when she remembers the way Holtzmann had looked right at her as she said it.

There had always been sparks between the two, and for the last few months there had been this unspoken agreement between the two of them.

Sometimes they would look up from their work and glance across the room at each other. It was a look that said both _I love you_ and _that scares me_ , sometimes so loudly that Abby and Patty could hear it too, even though neither of them had ever dared say it out loud.

Until today.

Maybe it wasn't intentional. Maybe Erin was reading into things again. But she didn't think that was the case.

The look on Holtzmann's face and the glint in her eyes were unmistakable.

It was vulnerability and hope and fear all mixed together and swimming around in blue eyes.

It was her way of saying _let's stop pretending_.

She can hear the engineer's music playing in the lab below her bedroom, something soft and slow.

Erin listens. She feels the quiet thump of the percussion in her skin and wishes it was Holtzmann instead.

She wonders what would happen if she got up right now and went downstairs, if the engineer would welcome her into her lab with a soft smile and _there you are_ or if she would turn her away.

Maybe Holtzmann would pull her close and they would dance. A real dance this time, not the figurative dance they've been doing for months.

When she finally succumbs to the invisible pull of her body toward Holtzmann, the physicist can almost feel the blonde's hands on her back and smell the solder and smoke on her clothes.

She doesn't bother being quiet as she descends the stairs, doesn't try to mask the sound of her bare feet slapping against the cold tile of the hallway to the lab.

She steps through the doorway to see Holtzmann with her feet propped up on her workbench stripping wires. She pauses there and listens as the blonde hums along to the song playing in the background, watches her wiggle her toes along to the beat.

But then she looks up and sees Erin standing in the doorway, her face shadowed with equal parts nervousness and determination, and she stands. They hold each other's stare in a sort of lover's standoff. Despite the music, a calm quiet surrounds them. An invisible hand pushes them toward each other and urges both of them to surrender to fate.

Holtzmann moves first and Erin follows shortly after. Both women practically sprint across the lab toward each other, stopping only when they're in each other's grasp.

"I love you, Erin."

"God, I love you too."

And when they finally kiss they can feel quasars exploding between them because nothing stops what's meant to be.


	4. Pride

"Jesus, Holtzy! Is there even a single inch of your body not covered in rainbows?" Patty asks as she takes in the engineer's outfit, from the rainbow glitter in her hair to her rainbow print socks.

"Patty, please, it's pride! It's basically illegal to not cover yourself in rainbows," she replies matter-of-factly.

She reaches up and wraps a rainbow-colored boa around the taller woman's neck before plopping down on her desk and fishing a compact out of the historian's purse. Patty laughs as she waves away the loose feathers that fly up into her face.

"You should've seen her last year," Abby says from her desk, temporary rainbow tattoos applied on either cheek. "Totally naked with a massive rainbow painted on her body. I had to physically restrain her from leaving our lab so she didn't get arrested."

Abby cringes as she remembers. "It took me two weeks to get the paint off my arms."

Patty laughs loudly and shakes her head, giving the engineer a look that says _I'm not at all surprised_.

Holtzmann grins into the mirror of the compact as she applies yet another layer of glitter eyeshadow. "I looked so gay...it was amazing."

The three women break into laughs and barely notice as Erin enters the firehouse.

"What's so funny?" She asks, setting her bag down on Patty's desk, a small smile already on her face as she waits to be let in on the joke.

Holtzmann laughs and slides off of Patty's desk, turning to face Erin.

"Abby was just telling Patty about how I took my clothes off and paint--" she stops short when she looks up at Erin and sees the physicist's shirt.

The words _I Put The "B" in LGBT_ scrawled across a Bi pride flag.

She does a double take and her eyes grow wide. She freezes, gaping at Erin. The physicist looks to Abby in confusion but Abby only snorts.

Erin shrugs and raises her eyebrows.

"You took your clothes off and painted...what?" the physicist says, coaxing Holtzmann to finish her sentence. The blonde still says nothing, only stares in open-mouthed astonishment.

Erin becomes self-conscious under her stare. She looks down at her outfit and subconsciously touches her face that is now turning a light shade of pink.

"...what?" She says, smoothing the front of her shirt. "Is there something wrong with my outfit? Do I look stupid? I look stupid, don't I?" She says, self-consciously wrapping her arms around her middle. She frowns.

"The one time I attempt to dress up for Pride and I end up looking like a jackass."

Abby laughs again and rolls her eyes.

"You look fine, Erin. I think Holtz is just a little...distracted."

Patty chuckles. "Distracted? Please, the girl is having a full-on meltdown. Look at her...is she even breathing?"

She waves a hand in front of the blonde's face. Abby and Patty break into hysterical laughter when she doesn't stir.

Erin confusedly looks between the two of them and then back to Holtzmann, who has finally managed to look up from Erin's shirt. Erin laughs nervously, still not understanding what's so funny.

Holtzmann shakes her head and clears her throat. She points at the brunette's shirt.

"B? You put the B in LG--bi? You're bi?!" Holtzmann asks, eyes wide.

"Yes? I...thought you knew," Erin replies.

"No, definitely did not know that. Definitely thought you were straight."

A smile breaks out on Holtzmann's face. She looks Erin up and down and shakes her head, chuckling to herself after mumbling something that sounds like "I'm an idiot." Erin laughs and shakes her head.

"Well, I guess you thought wrong."

Holtzmann nods her head. She bites her lip as she slips her hands into her front pockets.

"Mhm. Yes, I did," she says, starting a slow strut in Erin's direction.

Abby and Patty roll their eyes at each other and Patty nods toward the door. Abby gathers her things and follows Patty across the room, chuckling to herself the entire way.

"Abby and I gotta go...add more decorations to the hearse, or something. Y'all be ready to leave in 20 minutes or we're going without you," Patty says as she and Abby exit the lab.

On their way out the door, Abby tries to give Holtzmann a subtle thumbs up but Erin sees it anyway. It adds to her confusion, but she lets it go.

She walks back over to Patty's desk and rummages through her bag, pulling out a plastic bag crammed full of beaded necklaces.

"I got these at Pride last year," she says, examining the bag as she speaks. "They've just been sitting in one of my dresser drawers ever since so I thought maybe we could throw them out into the crowd or something?" She shrugs. "I'd rather give them away than have them in the back of a drawer forever."

Holtzmann nods, only half listening "Mhm. We could do that."

She leans back against Patty's desk and stares at Erin, her face split with a huge grin. Erin laughs.

"What?"

Holtzmann shrugs and shakes her head, still smiling.

"Why are you looking at me like that? Do I look stupid? " She asks once more, self-conscious again. Holtzmann gently grabs her by the wrist as she goes to smooth out her shirt for the tenth time.

"Er, stop. You look great," She laughs. "I'm looking at you like that because I'm very happy."

Erin raises an eyebrow but smiles a second later.

"Oh? Well, that's great," she replies, turning to stuff the bag of necklaces back into her purse.

Holtzmann stops her and takes the bag of necklaces. She tosses it onto the desk before grabbing either of Erin's arms at the elbow.

"Do you wanna know why I'm happy?"

Erin cocks her head to the side and laughs.

"Um...sure. Why are you happy, Holtz?"

The blonde smiles.

"I always thought you were straight and that made me sad. Today I found out that, not only are you not straight, but you're so not straight that you have a drawer full of necklaces that you bought at a gay pride parade in your apartment. That makes me happy."

Erin snorts. "Why would that make you happy?"

"Because now I can ask you out."

Erin's face softens. She bites her lip in an attempt to hide her growing smile.

"Oh," she says, brushing a strand of hair behind her ear. She blushes prettily.

"So, what do you say, hot stuff? Wanna be my date to Pride? I promise I'll make it worth your while," Holtzmann sings, teasingly poking Erin in the side.

Erin laughs and swats away Holtzmann's hand, unable to contain the smile on her face. She nods.

"Yes. I think I'd like that very much."

The engineer raises her arms above her head and spins around once. With a massive grin on her face, she offers her elbow to Erin.

"Shall we?"


	5. High School

"When did you come out?" Erin asks, her head resting on Holtzmann's chest as the two star-gaze from the roof of the firehouse. Holtz runs her fingers through the brunette's hair.

"High school. I told my mom I was gay and she laughed and said she'd known that since I  
put a framed picture of Ellen on my nightstand in the 5th grade," she chuckles. "Guess she had a point. I was never good at hiding it."

Erin laughs.

"You still have a picture of Ellen on your nightstand."

"Of course I do! And it will stay there until the day I die as is required by lesbian law," she jokes, gesturing wildly with her hands.

Erin giggles into Holtzmann's chest and tries to imagine her girlfriend as a teenager. She sees her walking down the hallways of a high school, winking at a group of cheerleaders with her yellow goggles resting atop her head. The thought makes Erin laugh again. She looks up at Holtzmann.

"Did you have a lot of girlfriends in high school?"

The blonde snorts and squints at the sky.

"No. I didn't uh....I didn't date or have friends or anything like that. I mostly set shit on fire behind the building with one of the custodians or hung out by myself in the library," she laughs .

Erin can see hints of some long forgotten pain on the engineer's face despite her attempt to conceal it. She brings the blonde's hand up to her lips and kisses it before smiling into the back of it.

"I would've been your girlfriend in high school."

At that Holtzmann playfully wiggles her eyebrows and grins.

"Oh yeah? Are you sure teenage Erin wouldn't have been more interested in, say, teenage Kevin?"

Erin playfully slaps her shoulder and sits up on her knees and turns, smiling as she looks down at the engineer. She grabs her hand again and intertwines their fingers.

"I'm serious. I can see us walking down the halls holding hands, going to prom...we would've been so cute.

Holtzmann chuckles and nods her head.

"Yeah, we definitely would've been the cutest couple, hands down,"

Erin laughs and looks out at the empty roof. Her smile quickly disappears as she remembers how miserable and lonely she was in high school as well.

"I always wanted that so bad when I was a teenager. I mean, I had Abby but it wasn't the same..." She trails off, looking down at their intertwined hands. "It's so stupid that I still think about it now, in my 40's, but sometimes I feel like I missed out on so much, you know?"

She smiles when she feels Holtzmann squeeze her hand. The two sit there quietly for a few moments, Erin looking out at the city and Holtzmann looking at Erin, as usual.

Suddenly the engineer jumps up from the ground, almost knocking the physicist over. She extends her arm, pulling Erin up after her.

"Are you ready to go inside already?" Erin asks, confused.

Holtzmann shakes her head and holds her index finger up. She walks across the roof and switches on a string of fairy lights they keep up for the barbeques and parties they have up there sometimes.

She smooths down the sides of her hair as she walks back toward Erin and gives her a small wink as she takes her hand. Erin cocks her head.

"Erin, my sweet, sweet Erin. Will you give me the genuine honor of being my date to the prom?" She asks, gesturing behind herself toward the open roof with her arm.

"What are you talking about?" Erin laughs.

"I'm talking about prom," she answers, pulling her phone from her pocket.

She taps the screen a few times and lays it on the ledge of the roof, smiling and reaching out for Erin as Time After Time by Cyndi Lauper beings to play.

"Dance with me," she grins, wrapping an arm around Erin's waist and pulling her close against her.

Erin beams at the engineer, wrapping her arms around her neck. She plays with the loose strands of hair at the base of Holtzmann's neck as they slowly dance in circles around the rooftop.

Erin presses her lips against Holtzmann's as the songs ends. They pull apart a few minutes later, both of them painting slightly.

The blonde looks dazedly at Erin until she wiggles her eyebrows and chuckles.

"Hey, you wanna make this really realistic and go get a hotel room?"

Erin rolls her eyes and snorts.

"Or we could go home to our apartment and do it in our own bed."

The blonde rolls her eyes playfully and pokes Erin in the side before taking her hand and walking them towards the door.

"Alriiight."


End file.
